


Vinegar and Brown Paper

by Sapphy, SapphyWatchesYouSleep (Sapphy)



Series: The Eternal Batman Universe [5]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Future, Bat Family, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Future Fic, Gen, Genetically Engineered Beings, Joker isn't good with kids, Kid Fic, M/M, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1877973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/SapphyWatchesYouSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Joker spied on his babies, and one time they spied on him</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vinegar and Brown Paper

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little 5+1 fic focussing on Joker's relationship with Red and the Wolf

1.  
The first time Joker spies on Red and the Wolf, Harley's only been dead a couple of days.

They're lying on the sofa in broken-Robin's apartment, both fast asleep, tucked up together under a towel, because apparently broken-Robin doesn't own any spare blankets.

Joker's never really been interested in babies before. They make quite convenient hostages, since they don't run away and they're easily portable, but they've got no sense of humour. They're basically dull, and he's never seen the point of them.

These ones though, these ones are different, because they're a little bit his and a little bit Batsy's, itsy bitsy little Batjokes, and that makes them interesting enough that he studies them in a way he never has any other babies.

The really interesting thing, he thinks, is the way they're so small. They very nearly look like real people, only shrunk down to pocket size. Joker wants to open them up and find out if all the squishy inside bits he doesn't know the names for are shrunk down as well, but he's not sure that, even with all the shiny upgrades he gave them, they'd survive that, and he doesn't actually want to hurt them. They're the most intricate things he's ever created, and he's damn proud of them. It had taken him days to learn how to perform successful gene splicing, and he's not going to waste all that hard work just because the results are interestingly miniature.

Broken Robin comes in then, a half empty bottle of whiskey in one hand and tears streaming down his face, and Joker ducks back into the shadows outside the window. He doesn't want to risk being caught, not right now. At least not until he's found a baby that isn't an eeny weeny piece of him and Batsy's relationship to cut open.

 

2.  
He wasn't actually looking for the Batlings, but he's always pleased to see them, so when he comes across them one night, sitting on the roof of an abandoned factory building, he stops to watch them.

They're cuddle up close together, the boy with his arms wrapped protectively around his sister, and they're still itsy bitsy, but Joker's impressed by how much the boy has grown since he saw him last. He thinks they're probably about four now, but the boy looks twice that, and his sister looks like a doll in his arms.

Joker sneaks closer, keeping the shadows, and realises with a sudden shock that the girl is crying, great heaving sobs, and that tears are glittering in the eyes of the boy too, sticking to his fur. (Why had he made him furry, Joker wonders? He doesn't actually remember now, only knows that it must have made sense to him at the time.)

"I'm sorry," the girl is saying, in between sobs. "I'm sorry I got us lost, Wolf. When Auntie Steph finds us, I'll tell her it's all my fault, I promise. I won’t let her tell you off."

The boy doesn't speak (did he do something to his vocal chords, Joker wonders? He doesn't remember that either), only holds his sister a little tighter.

They're a long way from their home, and who knows what kind of weirdoes might find them before girl-Robin does, so Joker makes himself as comfortable as he can on the concrete and prepares to keep watch until they fall asleep.

It's not long until they doze off, exhaustion writ clear in their tiny bodies, and Joker scoops them up as gently as he can, and makes his way back towards Tricorner, and girl-Robin's apartment.

He goes in through the window, presumably the same one the children had got out of, and has just finished tucking them into bed (he doesn't know which belongs to which child, and anyway they're still holding hands, so he puts them in the same bed) when the door slowly opens and girl-Robin is there. She's holding a taser.

Joker grins at her, and puts a finger to his lips, indicating the sleeping children. She looks at them, all anxious mother as her eyes search their peaceful faces for any sign of injury, and Joker takes the opportunity to escape back out of the window. He dislikes being tasered intensely.

 

3.  
His little baby batjokes are learning to fly. He's so proud.

They're on the roof of Wayne Manor, clutching grapnel guns and with adorable mini bat-wings strapped to their backs. Smiling-Robin is with them, in his shiny red suit, talking too low for Joker to hear.

He'd actually come to the manor to vandalise the topiary, which had been irritating him every time he walked past, but this looks much more exciting. It only takes a few snips of his secateurs to cut one of the offending bushes into a convenient seat, and then he settles in to watch his creations take their first flight. He feels like a proud father.

They both muck up their first attempts. The boy steps off the roof, and then fails to open his wings in time for the wind to catch him, and just plummets to land bump, right on his head. He bounces, like a rubber ball, and Joker has to stuff a fist in his mouth to keep smiling-Robin from hearing him laugh.

The girl is marginally more successful, getting her wings open, but then completely failing to steer, hitting the garden wall head first at some speed, tumbling down to land on the grass. One of the legs has come off, and Joker has a brief unfamiliar moment of worry, before he remembers that if her brother is the rubber baby, she must be the jigsaw one, and sure enough, after only a moment of lying stunned, she's up on her feet, carefully reattaching the missing arm. She hadn't even cried.

Smiling-Robin drifts down, on wings that don't match his costume, and gives them an exasperated sigh.

"You weren't even trying, were you?" he asks, and the twins grin unrepentantly.

"Auntie Steph said we weren't allowed to find out what happens if we jump off the top of our building," the girl says. "But she can't be cross if it's an accident. Except maybe with you, since you're supposed to be supervising us."

Joker wipes away a tear of pride. Barely out of diapers, and already they're blackmailing. He doesn't know if that ruthless streak is inherited from himself or Batsy, but he likes it.

 

4.  
Authentic-Robin came looking for him. Joker doesn't know whether he should be annoyed, or flattered.

"Meetings are by appointment only," he tells him. "Contact my secretary and she'll find you a slot."

"Jack and Jill are missing," Authentic-Robin says, and Joker just stares at him blankly, because he's pretty sure he doesn't know that nursery rhyme, but Authentic-Robin is looking at him like he should.

"Harley and Jason's kids," Authentic-Robin says with a sigh, and understanding dawns in Joker's mind.

"The baby Batjokes?" he asks. "Whatcha done with them?"

"That's what I'm here to ask you," Authentic-Robin says. "I know you keep tabs on them."

Joker doesn't, not really, he doesn't keep tabs on anything much, but he likes to know how they're getting on and if he bumps into them accidentally more often than is plausible, well that's his concern. "Haven't done anything with them," Joker says. He thinks that's true. He'd probably remember if he had. "Haven't seen them all week."

Authentic-Robin deflates, like a balloon with all its air let out, and Joker realises he must be really worried about the baby Batlings.

"They don't break," he offers, by way of consolation. "I made sure of that when I designed them. Rubber baby and jigsaw baby, indestructible for you convenience."

"Just because they can't be physically hurt, doesn't mean they can't be harmed," Authentic-Robin says, which is pretty silly.

"Gotham'll look after them," Joker says, because he loves this city, and she's always been good to him.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Authentic-Robin says, and then he's gone, dropping off the building into the dark street below.

 

5.  
The baby Batjokes have codenames, and costumes, and they're out with stabby-Robin, learning to fight crime. He'll admit to being a little annoyed that they've chosen vigilantism over being super criminals, but he's proud all the same.

They're Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, and Joker wonders vaguely whether he'd intended that all along, whether that was why he made the boy big and hairy and silent and his sister small and blond and pretty. (Probably not, he rarely plans that far ahead, but he doesn't know for sure.)

They've been on the streets for only a few days, always closely monitored by one of Robins, but already the criminal underworld is alight with gossip and stories about them. Joker's been cheerfully embellishing the stories, ensuring that his babies have a fearsome reputation.

Unkillable, the stories say, unstoppable. Raised by the Bat, trained from birth to follow him. The girl is a witch, and her brother eats human flesh. (That last one had been Joker’s idea entirely, but it’s quickly caught on. The disappearance of Waylon Jones has left a cannibal shaped hole in Gotham’s consciousness). They took down one of the True Facer Revivalist churches single handed (that one is actually mostly true.) They're a force to be reckoned with.

They look so adorable, in their little costumes, with their teeny little weapons, Joker wants to commit a crime, just so they'll chase him. That’d be so damn cute!

On the other hand, they’ve got stabby-Robin with them, and Joker doesn’t like him one bit, so maybe he’ll just follow them for a bit, maybe take some photos. His cell in Arkham has been looking pretty bare recently.

 

+1  
It’s a game they’ve been playing since childhood, trying to sneak into the cave without Uncle Bruce realising they’re there. They'd stopped doing it in their teens, when Red had declared it a children's game that they were too grown-up for, and by the time Wolf had started thinking that maybe they were grown-up enough to play children's games again, Uncle Bruce had forbidden them coming to the cave uninvited.

Years later, after a lot of hurt and misunderstanding, they found out why, found out that the monster who'd haunted their nightmares (haunted Red's nightmares that is, because Wolf remembers being four and cold and scared and being gently cradled in pale pale arms, green hair tickling against his nose) has been living in the cave.

There'd been a time, a long time, when Wolf thought his sister would never forgive Uncle Bruce for that, but she's slowly coming around, beginning to see that the cave is the securest place for the maniac, even if she can't see yet how important Joker is to Batman's mental health.

Wolf isn’t entirely sure that now is the right time to be playing again, but on the other hand, it’s fun and mostly harmless, so here they are, rappelling down the shaft that’s usually hidden by the grandfather clock, feeling like little kids again.

They’re doing pretty well, when they were kids they’d never get past the clock itself, and Wolf can feel his sister’s smugness radiating off her. Wolf himself is starting to feel a little nervous, because they never do this well, not ever.

Uncle Bruce is there, kneeling on the floor in front of his desk chair, one of the Joker’s bare feet in his lap, carefully bending and twisting his toes, watching his face intently, looking for any signs of pain Wolf assumes.

They’re so wrapped up in one another, so intensely focussed, that neither of them hear the twins come in. As they watch, Joker reaches down, as gentle as he’d been all those years ago when they were cold and lost, and strokes his fingers through Uncle Bruce’s hair. The expression on his face could almost be called fond, but the width of Joker’s mouth twists the expression into something almost mocking.

Uncle Bruce looks up, hands absently stroking Joker’s bare foot, and catches the strange twisted expression on Joker’s face. Bruce’s own face breaks into a warm smile, fonder than Wolf has ever seen.

Silently, he takes his sister’s arm and steers her back towards the clock. He has a depressing feeling that they’re not going to be playing the game again.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at gluttonforpunsihment or lentilswitheverything
> 
> Please leave kudos and comments, I'm very needy


End file.
